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Commentary on Perkins, Burns, Perry, and Nielsen's “behavior setting theory and community psychology: An analysis and critique”
Author(s) -
Schoggen Phil
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.585
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1520-6629
pISSN - 0090-4392
DOI - 10.1002/1520-6629(198810)16:4<373::aid-jcop2290160403>3.0.co;2-e
Subject(s) - realm , psychology , dominance (genetics) , criticism , function (biology) , social psychology , epistemology , law , biochemistry , chemistry , philosophy , evolutionary biology , biology , political science , gene
This commentary on the accompanying article by Perkins, Burns, Perry, and Nielsen (1988) recognizes it as an important contribution in developing a better awareness and understanding of the usefulness of Barker's behavior setting theory (Barker, 1968; Price, 1976; Wicker, 1979a) in addressing problems in community psychology. Issue is taken with the authors' person‐centered, heavily psychological orientation, which appears to have interfered with their understanding of behavior setting theory and research not concerned with the behavior or experience of the individual but rather with understanding the structure and functioning of the preperceptual, ecological environment of molar behavior. The laws governing the operation of the ecological environment are fundamentally different from and incommensurate with the psychological laws that govern individual behavior. Barker places behavior setting theory and research outside the domain of psychology and within the realm of eco‐behavioral science. Other issues considered in the commentary include the authors' criticism of the definition of community in behavior setting work, the crudeness of measures of behavior in standard behavior setting procedures, the claim that behavior setting research is concerned only with influences from settings to behavior and not the reverse, the inadequacy of behavior settings in understanding community change, and the dominance of form over function in behavior setting research.